Keep Your Love Relationship Alive, Hot and Fun!

My book, “Love From Both Sides – A True Story of Soul Survival and Sacred Sexuality,” tells the story of my husband dying in my arms and “coming back” to chat. Now you may be wondering, and how does that relate to “Rituals for Healthy Living?”

It does, because during my own marriage, I insisted on creating lots of simple rituals. For instance, even though my husband and I were both busy, (Dan was a lawyer and I was a screenwriter), we tried to eat dinner together whenever we could. I cooked, set the table and lit candles. I insisted that we enjoy the small moments. I also insisted that we actually set aside time to “be together.” We made dates to sit on the couch, light a fire, share a glass of wine. We talked, sometimes we even read poetry. In those quiet moments, we remembered why we got married.

And if I was lucky? I got a massage from his wonderful, blacksmith hands, and then we’d make love. And taking time to make “love” a ritual, rather than something that happened at the end of an exhausting day, or worse… something that didn’t happen because we just had no energy left, kept our love alive and the sex hot!

And what was amazing? Even though Dan would sometimes make fun of my fussiness, after he died, he thanked me for insisting that we “honor” what we had together. So ladies? You’ll love my book, because I got an apology! And appreciation. Better late, than never, right?

Creating a sacred ritual of your own might help to keep your love relationship alive, hot and fun! And that in turn will help your own health. (And it might help you lose weight, because you need high levels serotonin to lose weight, and sex is an easy way to get it!) Also according to the new brain research, the more sex you have, the better your brain functions! That’s good news, yes?

So why not start thinking about fun, sexy rituals? According to a wonderful article in the New York Times Sunday Magazine, (1/25/09), what really excites women (and creates lots of beneficial chemicals in her brain) … is being desired by her lover. So maybe dance for your lover… become a goddess, and create a fun sexy ritual that will help you live a healthy life!

~ Stephanie Riseley
www.stephanieriseley.com

Stephanie is participating in the WOW! Women On Writing Blog Tour for her book Love From Both Sides – A True Story of Soul Survival and Sacred Sexuality

Minimum Daily Dance Requirement - One Whole Song Every Day

Two of my favorite daily self-care rituals:
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1. My "MDDR" (Minimum Daily Dance Requirement). This is my tongue-in-cheek version of the "MDR" acronym, which stood for Minimum Daily Requirement in regard to vitamins and minerals). My MDDR is to dance at least one whole song every day. Just to be sure it always happens, I do it first thing upon rising in the morning. I love it!

2. "Three Nice Things." A while ago, I read about an experiment where participants (who were challenged by depression) took time every night to write down three nice things that happened to them that day. They also wrote about why they thought those things happened. The study found that this writing exercise markedly decreased symptoms of depression, and even after the participants had stopped doing the writing exercise for three months, the positive change in their mood still remained.

I thought that sounded like a great idea, depression or not. However, I didn't want the pressure of having to analyze the nice things that happened, and it felt like work to have to write anything down before bed. So I came up with my own version of the exercise.

Every night before I go to sleep, I think about three nice things that happened that day. Most days I remember many more than three things, but three is my minimum. Next, I think about three (or more) things I can do tomorrow that I know will make me and/or someone else feel good (the latter having the bonus of making me feel good as well, of course).

When I wake up the next morning, I don't let myself get out of bed until I do the ritual again. That is, I review the previous day and remember three nice things that happened. These can be the same things I thought about the night before, or different ones. After that, I think about three things I can do that day to make the day nicer (again, these can be the same things I thought about the night before, or different ones).

After doing the "Three Nice Things" ritual for while, I got hooked, because it's a sweet thing to do before and after dreamtime. I also noticed that it seems to help me go to sleep, which is a bonus. And it's a double bonus to drift off to sleep every night while thinking about nice things!

Over time, I've noticed that this simple ritual seems to be changing my ongoing daily thought patterns at deep-brain levels without further "efforting" on my part. In particular, I've noticed that my overall sense of gratitude and my focus on what's working (as opposed to what's not working) have both greatly increased. I mean, I've always been a grateful sort of person since I was a child. Even so, I strive to be even more appreciative of everyone and everything--and one of my goals in life is to experience gratitude as a constant state.

"Three Nice Things" has helped me tremendously in this regard, so I've made it part of my daily (and nightly) rituals for self-care. I don't know if my version of this exercise would have the same effect on another person's focus and "gratitude barometer," but who knows? Maybe the ripple effects for someone else might transport them to other equally lovely dimensions of life!

Cat Saunders
www.drcat.org

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Rituals in the Classroom

• We sing a song called “The Earth is Good to Me” before eating dinner
• I usually eat something small but yummy while I read right before bed
• In the classroom, for group well-being we meet at the start of the day to greet and start our work together
• At the end of yoga we think about our intentions for the day at the end of meditation.
• Saying namaste, thanking each other for practicing yoga together.

A frequent wish of mine over the years is that as a [school] community we would have some rituals together for the well-being of the community, like regular assemblies, singing the school song, etc. An updated version of the old rituals of the pledge of allegiance or patriotic songs. We were trying to think- when do we see ourselves (literally) as a whole community at our school?

~ Anonymous

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I Thank God for My Life

I think I have quite a few rituals that I may or may not do each day, however what is probably most important to me is immediately upon waking in the morning I thank God (whatever that means) for my life, for my being, for guiding me, directing me, opening my heart, and bringing me to a greater sense of love and peace. As I am going to sleep at night I thank God for the day, whether it has been a challenge or fun, naming things that happened, seeing my lessons and challenges, and joys and blessings.

Marilyn Robinson


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Saying Goodnight to Our Neighbors

I'm sitting on a boring conference call and started thinking about rituals. I actually have fought myself to have less rituals, as most of mine were "OCD-like" and really bothered me. For example, I used to always make sure I started walking with my left foot and stopped with my right, so I would take an even number of
steps. I'd end up bumping into things and going near bonkers when I had to stop, trying to remember what foot took the last step. That was a bad ritual, though it's funny in hind sight.

We have some rituals with Ona that are pretty cool, though. Every night at bed time we close the blinds, then the drapes while saying good night to our neighbors. I wish I could say it's because we want her to have a sense of community, but it's really just because windows are her favorite toy. We open them up and say "good morning" to the neighbors in the morning.

I'm drawing blanks on other things we do now, though. If you want to look into behaviors people get into, there are probably few groups of people with more bizarre rituals than baseball players. They are widely thought of as highly superstitious, and players tend to get into rituals with things such as patterns of adjusting between pitches, jumping over the foul line when going onto/off the field, drawing symbols in the dirt with their bats/feet, and on and on. I never strung together a great enough run to have one common ritual, so I can't say I was a member of that club, but I love learning what the pros do to calm their nerves.

If you want to read more, this article has some good tales of superstitions, some are rituals, some are just superstitions. The biggest ritual guy I can think of is a player named Nomar Garciaparra. Between pitches, he goes through a very elaborate deal where he adjusts his gloves, taps his toes, adjusts the gloves, taps the toes, taps the helmet, and so on.

Eric Muntz
Projectminer.com
ericmuntz@gmail.com


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Dinner at the Playground

We eat breakfast together and water the garden in the backyard.

Feeding our hummingbirds.

We hang out our sheets and blankets in the summer and revel in climbing into bed at night.

We go to bed in the evening at a set time during school months and if they are reading a good book no bedtime applies.

Listening to Woodie Guthrie Children's songs while puttering around the house.

Eating Pizza and watching a Baseball Game together at home.

Dinner at the playground. Parents sneak a bottle of Sangiovese.

~Bridge


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Pizza and baseball photo

I Am Nothing If Not A Person fo Ritual

I am nothing if not a person of rituals. Some of them include morning walks with my dog (now dogs) followed by lots of stretching, enjoying my coffee almost like a religion, praying to God when I go to sleep (for some reason I always remember to do this when I'm traveling but not always at home), try to go to church regularly on Sundays, eating a big breakfast in my room when I'm traveling (always the same thing, too). But you get my drift. I need fewer rituals in my life, not more!

~Becky

Wow!! I Do Take Care of Myself With My Rituals

For me… I do a meditation/clearing/intention time each morning consisting of energetically clearing out my house, my office space, and my boyfriend’s house, then putting in white light of the highest vibration into each of these spaces where I spend the most time. Then I call in all helpers/angels etc to assist me for the day (in general and in specific if I am working on something), and then I do the same for my daughter. Sometimes I do it at my altar, other times in bed before I get up.

Currently for the next 2 weeks I am cleaning out my energy field 2x/day after a shaman session I had recently.

I work out 3-4x/week…hike, swim, cardio, weights…

Before I go to sleep I go through the day and get into a space of gratitude for all the things that I enjoyed throughout the day. Occasionally I’ll get to write in my journal.

I have a spiritual book club that I attend 2x/month. I belong to a women’s prosperity circle that we talk 1x/week and do emails during the week to keep our vibration high!

I get Acupuncture (1-2x/month), Massage, Anat Baniel, Chiropractic etc as needed.

WOW!! I do take good care of myself with my rituals!

W.W
Source for Wellbeing


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Sharing New Things Each of Us Learned

Give thanks before every meal, joining hands with all gathered around the table

Bless the car and everyone in it as I begin driving

Bless our daughter, Adonia, each night, cuddle and give thanks for the day and look back at what went well and what could work better another day

Share with each other at supper time what new things each of us learned during that day

Pray/meditate each night before going to sleep, even if just for a short while

Touch in with my husband each evening to get a sense of the next day's flow and how we will weave each of our schedules and rhythms together in mutual support and awareness

Do a cleanse in the spring time -- which includes a yearly wildcrafting of nettles

That's a start for now... wanted to write some down right away before your email scoots too far up in my inbox (another "ritual" I am trying to enact more and more ;-))

~anonymous

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Sometimes Rituals Turn up. Sometimes They Vanish.

Rituals. Mmh. At certain times in my life, certain rituals turn up. Like meditation in the morning. Sometimes they vanish again. Partly because of a lack of discipline on my part. Partly because of completely mysterious reasons.

Right now, living the pretty scheduled life of a working father, my rituals are (randomly):

• Deep muscular core workout every Tuesday evening
• Anusara-Yoga at Sunday nights
• Singing a good night song to my son three times a week
• Talking my son to sleep. A little ritual I created when Finn couldn't find the gateway to the causal on his own. It's partly progressive muscle relaxation combined with a form of prayer. I always let him decide whether he wants to fall asleep alone or if I should guide him. Finn is 4.5 years old.
• Group meditation (1 hour) and energy work every Thursday night
• Trying hard to drink at least 2 liters of water every day and mostly succeeding
• A cup of strong black coffee in the morning
• Sensual love including oil-massage as regular as possible
• Sitting in a café drinking latte machiato and reading the paper on lonely Sunday mornings

That's it for now. My regular patterns. Rituals in the broad sense. Nonetheless..

Jan Koch
jankoch.email@gmail.com

Tea With My Son When He Gets Home

I have been so busy lately that I've dropped many of my healthy rituals. Not a good time for that!! I've even picked up some unhealthy ones recently (playing that colored lines game too often). It's incredible how tenuous our healthy habits sometimes are. A very good lesson for me, though. I try to "have it all together" all the time, and I need to allow myself to sometimes NOT!
I am also trying to show this part to others more regularly, rather than hide behind the "got it all together" and "doesn't get perturbed" masks.

But in this last week of school this quarter I have been turning back toward the healthy ones more. One that I have never dropped is praying before dinner. We go around the table and say what we are thankful for at that moment. It is a great way to slow down, and approach the meal with more presence, intention, and gratitude.

Another ritual is having oolong tea with my son when he gets home from school in the afternoon. It is a nice way to relax and be present together. We also read together most evenings before bed. This is probably one of my favorite rituals. We are currently reading the Chronicles of Narnia together. We both enjoy fantasy stories, and simply lying in bed together at the end of the day before going to sleep.

I have also been playing squash once a week with someone who is right at my level. We have a real good battle with each other!! I push myself very hard, and have a lot of fun in the process. This is my only regular exercise at the moment, but it's nice to have a regular time to meet with someone else to keep me engaged with it.

Rituals that I am currently interested in including more in my life are: coloring and drawing, recording and contemplating my night-time dreams, sitting meditation, playing piano, and creative visualization.

Michael Byrne
Creating Vitality



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